Eric Bischoff On Lex Luger Winning WCW Title From Hulk Hogan In 1997, Hogan Quickly Regaining Title At Road Wild

In a recent edition of 83 Weeks, Eric Bischoff discussed Lex Luger winning the WCW title from Hulk Hogan in 1997, Hogan regaining the title five days later at Road Wild, and much more. You can read Eric Bischoff’s comments below.

Eric Bischoff on Lex Luger winning the WCW title from Hulk Hogan in 1997: “Not only did Lex have such an important impact on the very first Nitro, but here were are at episode 100. Talk about a journey. Think about this, here’s a guy who left the company and nobody really liked him except for Sting and maybe the Steiner Brothers – he just wasn’t a well-loved guy, nobody shed a tear when Lex Luger left, especially people outside of the locker room. Goes off, comes back under a contract that I was hoping he’d tear up and throw in my face. But instead, takes it and over-delivers in every measurable way once can overdeliver as a professional and as a human being and team member to the point that here he is in the 100th episode beating Hulk Hogan. That’s a pretty cool story, both behind the scenes and obviously in front of the camera. Very, very cool.”

On Hogan regaining the title five days later at Road Wild: “I’m disappointed in that. We left so much on the table, and it was definitely too quick. It was a poor decision on everybody’s part – mostly mine. I greenlit that shit. There’s no other way to look at it. I know what the thinking was then, it was ‘it’ll be so much heat because people want Lex to be the champion.’ We knew it was gonna get heat and it did, but maybe the wrong kind of heat. Maybe not. But for sure what we did was leave so much great opportunity on the table, so much great storytelling on the table. There was no rush. What’s the rush? There’s no deadline or expiration date on this shit. It’s all about what can we as a team at that time do to make the most of it? Rather than thinking about it from that perspective, we rushed and took the easy way out because we knew it would work and why put any more into it than was necessary. That wasn’t a conscious thought, but that’s what I think was probably going through our minds then.”

If using any of the above quotes, please credit 83 Weeks with an h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.